Polymers, like polycarbonate, polyamide, polyester, etc., when combined with glass fiber and flame retardant additives, can achieve high modulus, and good flame retardancy, and can be used in various applications, such as replacement materials for metals in personal computers (notebooks) in order to achieve light weight and reduce cost. For notebooks or laptops to become ever thinner and lighter, strong materials with robust flame retardancy and better flow ability are needed. To meet both high modulus and good flame retardancy, more reinforcing filler and flame retardant additives are needed, which generally will drop the flow ability and ductility. Therefore, it is difficult to balance the flow, ductility, stiffness, and flame retardant performance of the materials, so they are suitable for the desired applications.
Currently, semi-crystalline polymers, such as some polyamides, also called nylon, are more attractive than amorphous polymers, such as polycarbonate, for metal replacement as materials for computers parts due to their stiffness properties. However, some polyamides, such as polyamide 66 and polyamide 6, possess some undesired properties, such as high moisture uptake, warpage issue and some other shortcomings, for this type of application. High temperature polyamides or semi-aromatic polyamides show better performance in terms of anti-moisture and warpage control than polyamide 66 and polyamide 6. However, compositions with polyamide possess undesired flow properties, especially when incorporating high loadings of inorganic filler and flame retardants to increase stiffness and flame retardancy. At the same time, as laptop and notebook designs becomes slimmer it requires thinner and thinner parts. For example, parts having a thickness of 1.8 mm to 2.5 mm, 1.2 mm to 1.6 mm, >1.0 mm, and even 0.6 mm to 0.8 mm are desired. To meet these requirements, new and more effective method/components are needed to improve flow properties and flame retardancy of the materials for these application. A generally method to improve the flow property of polyamide is to reduce aromatic group percentage by copolymerization or blends with aliphatic polyamides. However, this method reduces flame retardancy, thermal stability, and causes issue relating to dimensional stability and moisture absorption etc.
Thus, there is a need for materials with the desired properties discussed above. Such compositions, materials and articles of manufacture with the compositions are disclosed herein.